All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Quote from @Benjamin Hill:

Hi, I'm trying to find a credit bureau rent reporting service.  Has anyone had any good/bad experiences I can learn from?  Thanks!  Ben

Hi Ben,
Some property management platforms offer rent reporting if you process payments through the service.  Are you interested in collecting payments online with the reporting included or just rent reporting without online payment processing?  Thanks.  

Quote from @Edward Mccracken:

Does anybody recommend any property management services that a tenant can not reverse the charges?  I have been using buildium for years and it seems they keep on getting worse.  Especially with their support, its takes almost a week for them to respond.  They use to be so good back in the day.  My latest nightmare with them, is that they reversed a charge from 60 days ago, and it seemed like multiple tenants got together and did this, since its an apartment building.  

I'm thinking of switching to turbo tenant.... 

Was it an ACH payment?  If so, Unauthorized returns may be initiated within 60 days as a fraud tool with the ACH system.  This is standard for ACH so this is not specific to Buildium as you could encounter this with any ACH payment if the tenant lies and says it was not authorized. 

Quote from @Marcus Auerbach:

We have been using ACH though our bank for many years and it works great for the most part. It's also free. The downside is that is a very rigid system. Some tenants also don't like the fact that they can't initiate a payment. If a payment is NSF our backup is to either run it again once the account is funded or have the tenants drop of a check at our PO box, which is inconvenient for everyone. So maybe time to evaluate what's out there and can be used to transfer money to a business account (not to my personal phone) and what are the pros and cons. Maybe it would be good to offer a couple different options? 

Marcus, ACH can be painful with the returns and processing time.

If you are using property management software, it may offer a rent collection option.  You may encounter the same issues though as it will likely be ACH payments.

Zelle is a great option to avoid the issues with ACH but you don't have the option to block partial payments, automate late fees, etc.  

@Jason Brown thank you for the mention! 

@Maria Vargas the two main options for rent reporting:

1. Use a property management software and the service offers rent reporting for payments processed through the PM software.  You may not be able to report past payments not processed through the PM software though.  

2. Use a reporting-only option where you don't change the way you collect rent and reporting is provided for your tenants with some additional verification since the payments aren't being processed by the company.  This would allow you to report all of the payment history, up to 24 months, to help tenants with the Payment History credit factor and the Account Age factor with the lease start date being reported.

Either option is a great way for tenants to build credit depending on your collection preference.  Check the total cost to report both past history and future payments, which bureaus are reported to, and additional cost for spouses/roommates to be reported.

Great job helping your tenants build credit!  

@JB B. try https://www.rentrecoveryservic... for reporting delinquent tenants or use a collection agency.  

@Brian Hepler As @Chris London mentioned you won't be able to report directly to the bureaus but there are services that will provide reporting for you.  If you use property management software check if credit reporting is included with the payment processing.  If you don't use a software program, please check the NerdWallet link provided by @Nathan Gesner for reporting-only services so that you don't have to change the way you collect rent.

For any service, make sure you or the tenants are able to report past history as the bureaus will accept up to 24 months of history.  By reporting the payment history and start date of the lease that will help the tenants build credit.  Any questions please let me know.  Thanks.